Review: Rocky Balboa

Rocky Balboa, who has now been long retired from boxing and hitting close to the ripe ol’ age of sixty, runs a quaint little restaurant. He keeps flashing back on his life and how he wishes to reconnect with his son. Fortunately for us, he begins to toy with the idea of returning to the ring in a low level capacity. A computer simulation of Balboa depicting him defeating the current heavy weight champion Mason “The Line” Dixon raises a few eyebrows, hence the story begins and Rocky climbs back into the ring for one last time!

This film just didn’t have the same magic it did when I saw the other Rocky films when I was younger. It was a little corny at times but as a Rocky fan, I still enjoyed it. I was little disappointed with the fact that there wasn’t much boxing or training until the last act. Most of the movie, focused on Rocky reminiscing about the past and trying to get closer with this son, who was pissed at Rocky for always being in his shadow. The story’s focus was mostly on life after “Rocky the Boxer” and the development of his character.

Sly returns as our favorite and a much older looking boxer, Rocky Balboa. He’s still as charming as ever and is in great frickin’ shape for an old guy! We all know that this character is not the sharpest tool in the shed but he delivers this simple wisdom that anyone can appreciate and it’s something we never get to experience in the earlier films except for the first one. This one speech he has with his son gave me chills. Inspiring stuff and very well written!

Antonio Tarver plays the heavy weight champion Mason “The Line” Dixon. He didn’t do much for me. He’s supposed to be this unbeatable guy but he wasn’t intimidating enough and had kind of a baby face. At least with Rocky’s early opponents, you knew who the bad guy was and they were a force to be reckoned with. I guess they were trying to remove the cheese factor and give us a more realistic opponent. It didn’t work for me and I was expecting more of a presence seeing how this was going to be the last guy Rocky was going to fight.

Sly did a good job directing and depicting who Rocky was out of the ring and the limelight. I would have, however, liked to have seen more of the boxing element. The final fight scene wasn’t all that believable as Mason’s character didn’t even seem like he was trying or even getting hurt; but I still enjoyed the fight scene as it was well done visually and it was intense. The outcome of the fight was realistic and it was a great way to close up the final installment to the Rocky franchise.

Nothing beats the first one, but this film was enjoyable and gives us closure to the series. Rocky fans will totally dig this, but don’t expect a lot of boxing! This is more of a character story that most people will appreciate…ADRIAN!

— by Tim
Goernert